The President personally greeting the Pope was oh so the right thing to do. It was spectacular and

[pnwmom]

8. Pope Benedict five years ago changed the Church's position on condoms to prevent AIDS.

And Pope Francis said, with regard to gay people, "Who am I to judge?"

But I knew this visit would drive the anti-Catholic haters crazy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/europe/24pope.html

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI clearly acknowledged on Tuesday that the need to prevent diseases like AIDS could outweigh the church’s long opposition to the use of condoms.

It was a significant and stunning personal pronouncement from the conservative pope after more than two decades of heated debate inside the Roman Catholic Church and condemnation by health workers who said the church’s ban on prophylactics was morally indefensible during the AIDS crisis.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s spokesman, said that for Benedict, the use of condoms by people infected with H.I.V. could be “the first step of responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk to the life of the person with whom there are relations.”

“Whether it’s a man or woman or a transsexual,” he added.

SNIP